On a Tuesday this past February, something told Fran Wemple of New Philadelphia to drive past the former St. Paul’s Catholic Church on Brightwood Road in Midvale. When she got there, she discovered that the building — which had been an important part of her life and that of many Midvale residents — had been demolished.

“We had heard that it was going to be torn down,” she said. “I had been by it on Friday and it was still standing, but the stain glass window above the door and the cornerstone were gone.”

Her reaction to the loss of the church?

“It’s like a part of your life is gone,” Wemple said. “When you think how hard all those people worked to keep it going, it was sad.”

Another former member, Larry Wisintainer of Dover, had a similar response.

“It’s just hard to see it gone,” he said. But members already had endured the closing of the church in 1995. “That eased the pain,” he added.

The congregation dates to April 16, 1939, when the Rev. Oswald Greiner, pastor of Sacred Heart Catholic Church in New Philadelphia, celebrated the first Mass in Midvale in the miner’s hall, which was rented for the occasion.

In December 1944, Bishop James J. Hartley of the Diocese of Columbus established a parish in Midvale with the name of St. Paul the Apostle. In the beginning, the church was a mission of Immaculate Conception Church in Dennison.

Members of the congregation worked hard in the following years to raise funds to put up their own building. Eventually, they raised enough money to start construction at a site on old U.S. Route 250, worshipping in the finished basement beginning in 1949.

“I can remember when I was little, we always had a summer festival,” recalled Gay Reis of New Philadelphia. Her parents, Frank and Bernice Tollotti, were active in getting the church started. “We were one of the first to have a summer festival like that. We always had nice crowds. We had it at the Brightwood Country Club and also at Moose Island.”

Fundraising efforts continued to build the upper portion of the structure. About this time, the congregation started its famous polenta dinners.

The cornerstone was laid in 1955, and the men of the church worked alongside the Rev. Ralph Dermody, their pastor, and construction crews to finish the building. The completed church was dedicated by Bishop Michael J. Ready of the Diocese of Columbus on June 18, 1956.

On top of the church was a cross made of 2-inch copper pipe, constructed by Wisintainer’s father, Emanuel, who had a plumbing business in Midvale.

St. Paul’s faced a crisis in the mid-1960s when the state of Ohio made plans to turn Route 250 into a four-lane highway. The church was directly in the path of the new freeway and slated to be demolished.

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The Rev. Robert Manning, pastor at the time, made the bold decision to move the church 1,400 feet to a new location. That move was accomplished with only minor damage to the structure — a small crack in the sacristy.

But the challenges continued.

In the 1990s, the Catholic Church had to deal with a shortage of priests. The Diocese of Columbus, in response, restructured its congregations in Tuscarawas County, closing St. Paul’s and St. Therese Church in Wainwright. The last Mass at St. Paul’s was celebrated on July 9, 1995.

The building subsequently housed a day care center. “When the day care center was there, we were at peace, because the kids were there,” Wemple said.

But the day care center abruptly closed in October 2010, and the building had stood vacant until it was torn down two months ago.

Jon Baker is a reporter for The Times-Reporter. He can be reached via email at jon.baker@timesreporter.com.